This print of Obama painting I guess has (not suprisingly) gone viral.

Get yours for xmas on sale...

The Obama campaign didn't exist to make me feel good, and the Obama presidency won't either. I don't especially like his people punching the dirty fucking hippies under the bed, but on the other hand if they manage to convince people that Obama is a sensible centrist who wants to do sensible centrist things like build SUPERTRAINS, get out of Iraq, not torture people or invade random countries, strengthen labor protections, reduce income inequality, improve education, provide health care for people, and reduce poverty, while those DAMNED DIRTY HIPPIES just won't shut up about their magic ponies, it's fine by me.

For years we've had Democrats railing against those crazy hippies as an excuse to not do all of those things. If Obama's people are going to rail against the hippies and use it as an excuse to do them, fine with me. If.

Well, they could have fooled me. I thought it was the Obama campaign's expressed intent to make us feel good. And if not the Obama campaign, the media was peddling that his was the Politics of Maximum Unity. If that ain't meant to be feel good, then I don't want to know what is.

As for the rest, I think Atrios got it wrong. Obama's operatives aren't "dirty fucking hippies" under the bed, and if he was secretly doing it anywhere it'd have been under a bus. No, he's punching "dirty fucking hippies" right in the mouth, right out in broad daylight.

Coming to a neighborhood near you, and you, and you.

"elected officials work for the electorate?" or "civil servants?"

lambert started talking about it a long time ago: this whole idea that we have "leaders" and not "elected officials accountable to the public and the rule of law" is bullshit. that's what i didn't like about the tone of atrios' post. i don't want an official to make me happy (unless i'm sleeping with one) but i do expect them to understand they work for my benefit as a condition of holding office.

Hope this isn't too OT:

CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama's election as president.